Math Student Built Nuclear Fusion Reactor With AI Help

Astonishing countless people online, Hudhayfa Nazoordeen, a mathematics undergraduate, built a miniature fusion reactor in his bedroom with the help of Anthropic's Claude 3.5 Sonnet AI model, sharing the process along the way, from understanding components to designing and assembling.

In simple terms, a fusion device uses an electrostatic field to accelerate ions, such as deuterium, toward a central point where they collide and fuse. The setup needs a high vacuum to minimize collisions with background particles, high voltage to create the electrostatic field that accelerates the ions, and deuterium gas as the fusion fuel.

Since Hudhayfa had no prior hardware experience, he familiarized himself with design and the use of McMaster-Carr in the first week. In the second week, as parts began to arrive, he started building the main chamber and assembling the half-bridge rectifier.

By the third week, Hudhayfa was setting up the system in his bedroom and learning to connect the neon sign transformer. Without a multimeter, he used an Arduino to check circuit connections.

He also used the MKS-901p transducer to establish a vacuum and measurement system. "I fed Claude all my datasheets, and it helped a ton with this", commented the developer. Hudhayfa found this project stage most challenging, as he spent a week locating a vacuum leak and successfully reduced the pressure to 25 microns.

In the fourth week, Hudhayfa found a 12kV neon sign transformer that successfully produced plasma. While this experiment didn't achieve fusion, it demonstrated the potential of combining the internet with LLMs, showcasing how it can open doors to scientific exploration for enthusiasts without prior experience.

Many top engineers reached out to Hudhayfa, offering advice, such as Michael Liesenfelt, assistant professor of nuclear engineering and software engineer at Tesla:

Hudhayfa was originally inspired by another talented engineer, Olivia Li, the author of the Building a Fusion Reactor in my 6th Floor NYC Walkup project, which involved assembling a chatbot that could quickly pull up and condense relevant details found online.

She praised Hudhayfa's project, saying he was the only person who actually put this idea into practice:

Find the original thread here and follow both Hudhayfa Nazoordeen and Olivia Li for more incredible experiments. Also, join our 80 Level Talent platform and our Telegram channel, follow us on Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, TikTok, and Reddit, where we share breakdowns, the latest news, awesome artworks, and more.